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drwexI don't need the latest and greatest, but I am thinking about buying myself a new gaming machine (thus, PC) so I can pass my current one down to the kids.
I loathe do-it-yourselfing things; I just want to spec out a box then have someone build it and make it work. The less I have to frob with the hardware and software myself the happier I am.
ETA: I like playing reasonably graphics-rich games. I play Warcrack now, and am looking longingly at Skyrim. I don't tend to play FPS, so complex input devices and twitch-level control aren't necessary.
My budget for this is probably around $1k. Less is always better. I seem to buy a new machine every 3-4 years so if this one was reasonably capable of lasting that long before becoming hopelessly outdated that'd be good.
I loathe do-it-yourselfing things; I just want to spec out a box then have someone build it and make it work. The less I have to frob with the hardware and software myself the happier I am.
ETA: I like playing reasonably graphics-rich games. I play Warcrack now, and am looking longingly at Skyrim. I don't tend to play FPS, so complex input devices and twitch-level control aren't necessary.
My budget for this is probably around $1k. Less is always better. I seem to buy a new machine every 3-4 years so if this one was reasonably capable of lasting that long before becoming hopelessly outdated that'd be good.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-16 05:01 pm (UTC)Fair questions
Date: 2011-11-16 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-16 05:33 pm (UTC)That being said, a good reference, IMO, can be found at http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/gaming_pc
Now, many portions of that page are about building your own.
Not ALL of the articles are, however.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-16 05:55 pm (UTC)Then I found Ars Technica. They test out their suggestions thoroughly and talk about why they made the choices they did. Even if you don't want to build it yourself it's worth looking at their most recent guide to find out what's "needed." It also tells you how much DIY is (or isn't) going to save.
The most recent guide I found is here. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/03/ars-system-guide-march-2011-edition.ars
It's also 8 months old. My guess is that by now - especially if you already have a monitor and can leave that out - a machine to hot rod specs can be built for about $1000.
I went to the Dell website and, starting with their Vostro 460 came up with something vaguely approximating the Ars budget box for $775 (includes speakers, no monitor; monitor's another $200 or so). To upgrade it to something approximating the Ars hot rod bumps it to near $1000, but doesn't have as good a graphics card as the hot rod because they don't offer it.
Personally, I think for Warcraft both the Dell machines will be lacking in the graphics card department. You might be able to get one with no graphics card and then upgrade it, but now you're back in DIY territory.
(As it happens I was recently using the Dell site to spec out a new work desktop)
Just did this
Date: 2011-11-16 05:59 pm (UTC)I finally went through Ibuypower ( http://www.ibuypower.com/ )and put a desktop together. I did not have them put the OS on it. We had a bit of a battle getting it to go on the solid state drive but thanks to
They get an A+ for communication during the build process, every day or 2 I would get an email telling me what stage it was going through.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-16 06:01 pm (UTC)You can spec every thing from the ground up for both of them and they'll build and test it for you.
Start with one of the models that close to what you want and below your price point and go from there.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-16 06:06 pm (UTC)1. A basic, budget gaming rig ($678)
2. A middle-of-the-road gaming rig ($1482)
3. A top of the line gaming rig. ($4200)
You might want to get a copy of the magazine and check out the list, which they call "Hard Stuff Trinity." Or, if you have no interest in the magazine, let me know which of the three you want specs for, and I'll transcribe them. (I subscribe to it, in print form, even.)
I'm probably a middle guy
Date: 2011-11-16 07:31 pm (UTC)Re: I'm probably a middle guy
Date: 2011-11-16 07:44 pm (UTC)Okay, so here's what they recommend for what they call a mid-range system:
Case and PSU: Corsair 800D; Corsair TX 750W PSU $395
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4 GHz $315
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe LGA 1155 $230
Memory: 8GB Patriot Gamer 2 Series DDR3-1600 $100
Optical Drive: Samsung Black SH-S223L LightScribe $20
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB $70
Soundcard: Creative X-Fi Sound Blaster Titanium $87
Videocard: Gigabyte Super Overclock Series GeForce GTX 560 Ti $265
Prices are the best found at press time, usually from NewEgg.
P. S.
Date: 2011-11-16 07:49 pm (UTC)This list is from the Holiday, 2011 issue of PC Gamer magazine (the one with Diablo III on the cover), Issue 221, page 94. The editor of the magazine is Logan Decker; the "Hard Stuff Trinity" list has no specific author listed.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 06:26 am (UTC)And I'm with you on not spending 4K unless I won the lottery. But if I did I probably would build an insane system (one that would probably cost a lot more than 4K!) just to be able to say that I had done it, and then I'd sell it to a gamer with more enthusiasm than wisdom. Let's see... either a Sandy Bridge Extreme Edition (I wish AMD had something that could compete but currently they don't) or maybe a server-class dual socket mobo with dual multi-core Xeons, three GTX 595 cards in six-way SLI, dual 1TB SSDs (yep, they actually exist now, a bit over a kilobuck each if memory serves), at least 16GB of fast DDR3 memory, and on from there.